Systems and methods for identifying and correlating an advertised object from a media asset with a demanded object from a group of interconnected computing devices embedded in a living environment of a user

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for identifying and correlating an advertised object with a plurality of interconnected computing devices embedded in a living environment of the user. For example, a media guidance application implemented at a set-top box with a television may receive a signal from a printer indicating that cartridge ink is low. When the user is watching a television show and an advertisement relating to printer cartridges is being played, the media guidance application may identify that the advertised printer cartridges may be something that the user needs, and may then send a notification to a user of the advertisement. In this way, the media guidance application correlates advertisements from a media asset with a user&#39;s actual needs, which may improve the advertisement conversion rate for advertisers.

BACKGROUND

In related art systems, an advertisement system may learn the interestsof an individual user and generate customized advertisements for theuser based on the user's interests. For example, related art systems maycollect information relating to a user's browsing history, prior viewinghistory, subscriptions to media programs and/or social media history.The advertisement system may identify that the user has ‘liked’ aphotograph of organic skincare products on social media. Theadvertisement system may then insert advertisements related to beautyproducts in a media program. The advertisement system may insert anadvertisement during a commercial break when the user is watching themedia program. However, by relying on a large amount of data relating tothe user's Internet activities to identify user interests, the burdenfor the advertisement system to collect and process this large amount ofdata may be significant. In addition, for some advertisements that areembedded in a media program, e.g., product placement advertisements, itis unrealistic to customize such advertisements to target an individualuser, as the advertised product is usually shown as part of a scene inthe media program.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for identifying an advertisedobject from a media asset and providing the advertised object to a userby automatically identifying a level of user interest in the advertisedobject and correlating the advertised object with a plurality ofinterconnected computing devices embedded in a living environment of theuser. For example, a media guidance application implemented at a set-topbox, connected to a television, may receive a signal from a printerindicating that cartridge ink is low. When the user is watching atelevision show and an advertisement relating to printer cartridges isbeing played, the media guidance application may identify that theadvertised printer cartridges may be something that the user needs, andmay then send to the user a notification of the advertisement.

In this way, the media guidance application may customize advertisementdelivery to a user by correlating advertisements from a media asset witha user's actual needs, without gathering and processing a large amountof data relating to the user's Internet activities and insert customizedadvertisements into the media asset for each individual user as relatedexisting advertisement systems usually perform. The burden of dataprocessing for an advertisement system or a media content server is,thus, largely reduced. In addition, related existing advertisementsystems usually rely on mining user interests based on random useractivities on the Internet, which may have limited accuracy inpredicting any purchasing inclination of the user. Instead, the mediaguidance application identifies a demand directly from the Internet ofthings (IoT) devices from the living environment of the user, andmatches an advertised object with the demand, which likely results in apurchase transaction of the advertised object. Thus, the media guidanceapplication achieves a higher advertisement conversion rate for theadvertised object.

To this end and others, in some aspects of the disclosure, the mediaguidance application may receive, from a remote source, a media assetand metadata corresponding to the media asset. The media guidanceapplication may play, at user equipment, the media asset to the user.The media guidance application may then identify an advertised objectfrom the metadata corresponding to the media asset at a time when themedia asset is being played. For example, the media guidance applicationmay retrieve the subtitle of the media asset and identify a commercialbreak, or the metadata may indicate when a product placementadvertisement is embedded in a video frame of the media asset. The mediaguidance application may then poll a communication stack within a firstwireless communications network operated under a first wireless networkprotocol, for status information of a plurality of computing devicesinterconnected via the first wireless communication network. Forexample, the media guidance application may poll for status informationof network-enabled home device such as a printer, a coffee machine, arefrigerator and/or the like within a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi network. Themedia guidance application may then receive, via the first wirelesscommunications network, an electronic status message from a computingdevice. The electronic message is indicative of a demanded objectrelating to the computing device, e.g., cartridge ink for a printer,coffee capsules for the coffee machine, etc.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may limit thepolling when there is no advertisement displayed to save power. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine a segment of themedia asset that contains no advertised object based on the metadatacorresponding to the media asset, and refrain from polling thecommunication stack when the segment of the media asset is being played.In another example, the media guidance application may only initiatepolling when the user is paying attention to the advertisement beingplayed. The media guidance application may monitor an engagement levelof the user towards the media asset, and determine whether theengagement level at the time is greater than an engagement threshold. Inresponse to determining that the engagement level at the time is lessthan the engagement threshold, the media guidance application mayrefrain from polling the communication stack for the status informationof a plurality of computing devices at the time. In response todetermining that the engagement level at the time is greater than theengagement threshold, the media guidance application may poll thecommunication stack at the time for the status information of aplurality of computing devices.

In some embodiments, in response to obtaining information relating tothe demanded object, the media guidance application may compare thedemanded object with the advertised object to determine whether theadvertised object is related to the demanded object. For example, themedia guidance application may determine a first set of attributesrelating to the advertised object, such as a product type, a brand name,a keyword, and a corresponding computing device relating to theadvertised object, and/or the like. Similarly, the media guidanceapplication may determine a second set of attributes relating to thedemanded object, such as a product type, a brand name, a keyword, and acorresponding computing device relating to the demanded object, and/orthe like. The media guidance application may then compare the first setof attributes with the second set of attributes to determine an overlappercentage between the two sets of attributes, and determine whether theoverlap percentage exceeds a matching threshold for the demanded object.In response to determining that the overlap percentage exceeds amatching threshold for the demanded object, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the advertised object is related to thedemanded object based on the comparing.

In response to determining that the advertised object is related to thedemanded object based on the comparing, the media guidance applicationmay send, to a user device (e.g., a mobile phone, a personal computer, awearable device, etc.), an electronic communication includinginformation relating to the advertised object. In some implementations,the media guidance application may send the electronic communicationunder a different wireless network than Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, e.g., theelectronic communication is routed to a remote communication server(e.g., a cellular base station, etc.), such that the electroniccommunication is sent to the user device as a text or multimedia messagevia a cellular network (e.g., 3G, 4G, etc.).

In response to sending the electronic communication to the user device,the media guidance application may obtain a user indication that affirmsa user demand for the advertised object. For example, the user mayconfirm an interest in the advertised object via a tap on the userinterface, a voice command, a gesture, and/or the like. In response toobtaining the user indication that affirms a user demand of theadvertised object, the media guidance application may send a transactionrequest to an electronic commerce website to complete a purchase of theadvertised object. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine whether the metadata corresponding to the media asset includesinformation relating to the electronic commerce website corresponding tothe advertised object, e.g., whether the metadata includes a field for auniversal resource location (URL) link. In response to determining thatthe metadata corresponding to the media asset includes informationrelating to the electronic commerce website corresponding to theadvertised object, the media guidance application may extract theinformation relating to the electronic commerce website and send thetransaction request to the electronic commerce website. In response todetermining that the metadata corresponding to the media asset does notinclude information relating to the electronic commerce websitecorresponding to the advertised object, the media guidance applicationmay retrieve information relating to a previously stored electroniccommerce website, e.g., Amazon.com®, BestBuy.com®, etc., and send aquery including a search term relating to the advertised object to thepreviously stored electronic commerce website. In response to sendingthe previously stored electronic commerce website, the media guidanceapplication may obtain a link to a product page relating to theadvertised object, and send the transaction request to the product pagerelating to the advertised object.

In some embodiments, before sending a notification to the user device,the media guidance application may evaluate how relevant or crucial theadvertised product is to the user. The media guidance application maystore every demanded object and one or more attributes corresponding tothe demanded object into a user interest table, and assign to thedemanded object a priority score based on the one or more attributes.For example, an object that the user has a periodic subscription to,such as cartridge ink for a printer, coffee capsules for a coffeemachine, etc., may be assigned a high priority score. Thus, the mediaguidance application may retrieve the priority score assigned to thedemanded object, and determine whether the priority score is greaterthan a first pre-determined priority threshold. If the priority score isgreater than the first pre-determined priority threshold, e.g.,indicating a high priority of the demanded object, the media guidanceapplication may automatically send the transaction request to theelectronic commerce website to complete the purchase of the advertisedobject without user intervention. If the priority score is lower thanthe first pre-determined priority threshold but higher than a secondpre-determined priority threshold, e.g., indicating a moderate priorityof the demanded object, the media guidance application may send theelectronic communication to the user device and subsequently send thetransaction request to the electronic commerce website to complete thepurchase of the advertised object in response to obtaining the userindication that affirms a user demand of the advertised object.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify userinterests in an object from user activities (e.g., Internet activitiessuch as browsing history, social media ‘likes,’ etc.). The mediaguidance application may store the object and one or more attributescorresponding to the object into the user interest table, and assign apriority score to the object based on the obtained information relatingto user activities indicating the user interest in the object and thetype of the object. For example, if the user has previously purchased aproduct of the same type of the object, the media guidance applicationmay assign a relatively higher priority score. If the user has merely‘liked’ a photo relating to the object on social media, the mediaguidance application may assign a lower priority score. The mediaguidance application may generally assign a lower priority score to anobject identified from user Internet activities compared to the scoreassigned to the demanded object identified directly through statusinformation from a computing device.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the advertisedobject is unrelated to the demanded object based on the comparing, themedia guidance application may determine whether the advertised objectcorresponds to the object that the user has shown interest in from theuser interest table. In response to determining that the advertisedobject corresponds to the object from the user interest table, the mediaguidance application may determine whether the priority scorecorresponding to the object is greater than the second pre-determinedpriority threshold. In response to determining the priority score isgreater than the second pre-determined priority threshold, the mediaguidance application may send the electronic communication to the userdevice and subsequently send the transaction request to the electroniccommerce website to complete the purchase of the advertised object inresponse to obtaining the user indication that affirms a user demand ofthe advertised object.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may only initiatethe polling and send notifications to the user during commercial breaks,so as to reduce any interruptive notification to the user when the useris engaged in watching a television program. For example, in response topolling the communication stack at the time for the status informationof a plurality of computing devices, the media guidance application maydetermine whether the media asset is at a commercial break at the timebased on the metadata corresponding to the media asset. In response todetermining that the media asset is at the commercial break at the time,the media guidance application may send, to a user device (e.g., a usermobile device, etc.), an electronic communication including informationrelating to the advertised object when the advertised object is relatedto the demanded object. In response to determining that the media assetis not at the commercial break at the time, the media guidanceapplication may refrain from sending, to the user device, the electroniccommunication and add the advertised object to a wish list associatedwith a user profile for user review at a later time.

It should be noted that the systems, methods, apparatuses, and/oraspects described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or aspects described in thisdisclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative diagram for identifying and correlatingan advertised object from a media asset with a plurality ofinterconnected computing devices embedded in a living environment of theuser, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for identifyingand correlating an advertised object from a media asset with demandsfrom a plurality of computing devices embedded in a living environmentof the user, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for polling awireless communication stack for status information of a plurality ofcomputing devices, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether to send an electronic communication to a user device (e.g., see608 in FIG. 6), in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for sending atransaction request to initiate a purchase of the advertised product, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 10 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for identifyingand correlating an advertised object from a media asset with a demandedobject of a computing device, in accordance with alternative embodimentsof the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for identifying an advertisedobject from a media asset and providing the advertised object to a userby automatically identifying a level of user interest in the advertisedobject and correlating the advertised object with a plurality ofinterconnected computing devices embedded in a living environment of theuser. For example, a user may reside in an environment embedded withInternet of things (IoT), e.g., an interconnection of network-enabledcomputing devices embedded in everyday objects, such as a television, aprinter, a coffee machine, a refrigerator, a laundry machine, an oven, athermostat controller, and/or the like. The network-enabled computingdevices may be interconnected within a local area network such asBluetooth or Wi-Fi, and may share status information among the localarea network. For instance, a media guidance application implemented ata set-top box with the television may receive a signal from a printerindicating that cartridge ink is low, and a new cartridge is needed bythe printer. The media guidance application may, in turn, storeinformation relating to the demanded printer cartridge, and identify anadvertised printer cartridge from a television program as possiblyrelating to a user need. The media guidance application may then send anotification to the user, recommending to the user that the advertisedprinter cartridge may be suitable for a demand of the printer.

In this way, the media guidance application may correlate advertisementsembedded in a media asset or played during a commercial break with theactual needs of a user. As the user may likely proceed to authorize atransaction of the advertised product when the advertised product fitsan actual need, the advertisement conversion rate for advertisers may beimproved. In addition, by identifying a user-demanded object withadvertisements that have already been inserted in a media asset, themedia guidance application no longer needs to devise and insert targetedadvertisements based on user interests into the media asset for eachindividual user, and, thus, the burden of data gathering and processingfor the media guidance application may be largely reduced.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded oncomputer-readable media. Computer-readable media includes any mediacapable of storing data. The computer readable media may be transitory,including, but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagneticsignals, or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to,volatile and non-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as ahard disk, floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, registermemory, processor caches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

As used herein, the term “ad” or “advertisement” is defined to mean anannouncement or a notice featuring a product, a service or an event,displayed as part of the media asset. An “ad” or “advertisement” mayinclude a variety of forms such as, but not limited to, a commercialprogram during a commercial break, a product placement advertisement, anoverlay on top of the content of the media asset, and/or the like.

It is to be noted that embodiments described herein may be implementedby a media guidance application, or any other video, audio or othercontent management tool that is implemented on a computing deviceinterconnected with other IoT devices.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not use. As referred to herein, thephrase “user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,”“electronic device,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,”or “media device” should be understood to mean any device for accessingthe content described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters” or providers” logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

As referred to herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated asa result of. For example, a first action being performed in response toa second action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred to herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative diagram for identifying and correlatingan advertised object from a media asset with a plurality ofinterconnected computing devices embedded in a living environment of theuser, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Diagram 100shows a living environment of a user 110. The living environment isembedded with a plurality of computing devices including user equipment106, a refrigerator 111, a printer 112, a thermostat 113, a coffeemachine 114, and/or the like. The computing devices 106 and 111-114 areinterconnected via a wireless connection 119, e.g., a Bluetooth or Wi-Finetwork, to receive and transmit data.

A media guidance application may be implemented at a set-top box withthe user equipment 106, which may receive, from a remote source (e.g.,data sources 516, 518 via communications network 514 as discussed inrelation to FIG. 5), a media asset 105 and metadata corresponding to themedia asset, e.g., from content source 516 via communications network514 as further described in relation to FIG. 5. The media guidanceapplication may play, at user equipment 106, the media asset to the user110.

The media guidance application may identify an advertised object, e.g.,a coffee product 107, from the metadata corresponding to the media asset105 at a time when the advertised object 107 is being displayed at userequipment 106. For example, the media guidance application may determinefrom the subtitle of the media asset and identify a commercial break,and identify keywords relating to the advertised product 107, e.g.,“coffee,” Nespresso®, “French vanilla,” “capsule,” “quick refill,”and/or the like. For another example, the metadata may include astructural file that includes a structured section tagged as“advertisement,” which may indicate a product placement advertisement isembedded in a video frame of the media asset. For instance, a segment ofthe metadata, e.g., stored at storage 408 as further described inrelation to FIG. 4, including a structural tag for an embeddedadvertisement for the advertised object 107 may take a form similar to:

<metadata> <asset_id> XXXXX </asset_id> <ad_ag_1>  <start_time> 19:56</start_time>  <end_time> 19:59 </end_time>  <ad_type> embedded </type> <commercial_break> no </commercial_break>  <placement>   <bottom_left>   <x_coordinate> XXXX </x_coordiante>    <y_coordinate> XXXX</y_coordinate>   </bottom_left>   <bottom_right>    <x_coordinate> XXXX</x_coordiante>    <y_coordinate> XXXX </y_coordinate>   </bottom_right>  <top_left>    <x_coordinate> XXXX </x_coordiante>    <y_coordinate>XXXX </y_coordinate>   </top_left>   <top_right>    <x_coordinate> XXXX</x_coordiante>    <y_coordinate> XXXX </y_coordinate>   </top_right> </placement>  <frame> “Nespresso_mug.jpg” </frame>  <brand_name>Nespresso </brand_name>  <product_type> beverage </product_type> <keyword> coffee, refill </keyword> </ad_tag_1> </metadata>

In the above example, the metadata for an embedded advertisement mayinclude information relating to a position of the advertised object 107shown at a screen of the user equipment 106, a time that the advertisedobject 107 may appear, a product type of the advertised object 107,and/or the like.

The media guidance application may then poll a communication stackwithin the wireless communications network 119 operated under thewireless network protocol, e.g., Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, for statusinformation of a plurality of computing devices interconnected via thefirst wireless communication network. For example, the media guidanceapplication may store an address on a communication stack representingeach of the computing devices 111-114 under the wireless network 119,and may send a polling message, via an I/O path 402 as further describedin relation to FIG. 4, to the addresses representing the computingdevices 111-114 for a status update. For example, a pseudo-segment of apolling message to poll the communication stack may take a form similarto the following:

Host: 172.16.244.1 Destination: 172.16.244.5 <poll> <host_id> MGA</host_id> <destination_id> printer_HP_color </destination_id> <query>status_request </query> </poll>

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may limit thepolling when there is no advertisement displayed to save power. Themedia guidance application may determine a segment of the media assetthat contains no advertised object based on the metadata correspondingto the media asset, and refrain from polling the communication stackwhen the segment of the media asset is being played. For example, whenthere is no advertisement embedded in the media asset, the mediaguidance application may temporarily enter into an “idle” mode and mayonly initiate polling again when the metadata of the media assetindicates an advertisement is being played. In some implementations, themedia guidance application may only initiate polling during a commercialbreak. In some implementations, the media guidance application maymonitor the metadata of the media asset, e.g., subtitle, advertisementtags, etc., for any product placement advertisements placed into themedia asset, and initiate the polling accordingly.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may only initiatepolling when the user is paying attention to the advertisement beingplayed. The media guidance application may monitor an engagement levelof the user towards the media asset, and determine whether theengagement level at the time is greater than an engagement threshold. Asused herein, the term “engagement” is defined to mean viewing and payingattention to an object, e.g., the media asset including theadvertisement being played. For example, the media guidance applicationmay employ the front-facing camera (e.g., part of the user inputinterface 410 as further described in relation to FIG. 4) to capture thephysical location, line of sight, movement, gesture, etc. The mediaguidance application may further employ an audio recorder to record, viaspeakers 414 as further described in relation to FIG. 4, a vocalconversation from the user 110, ambient noise in the environment, or thelike. The media guidance application may aggregate and analyze themonitoring data to determine a numeric value representing an engagementlevel of the user 110. Further discussion of determining whether a useris engaged in watching a media asset played on user equipment can befound in commonly owned and co-pending PCT International ApplicationNos. PCT/US2017/031755 and PCT/US2017/031765, both filed May 9, 2017,and PCT/US2017/031765, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties.

In response to determining that the engagement level at the time is lessthan the engagement threshold, the media guidance application mayrefrain from polling the communication stack for the status informationof a plurality of computing devices 111-114 at the time when theadvertised object 107 is displayed at user equipment 106. In response todetermining that the engagement level at the time is greater than theengagement threshold, the media guidance application may poll thecommunication stack at the time when the advertised object 107 isdisplayed at user equipment 106.

In response to the polling, the media guidance application may thenreceive, via the wireless communications network 119 (e.g., Wi-Fi orBluetooth), an electronic status message from each computing device111-114. The electronic message includes information indicative of astatus of the computing device, which may indicate a deficiency of ademanded object relating to the computing device. For example, a statusmessage from printer 112 may include information of a low cartridge inklevel, indicating a demand for cartridge replacement. For anotherexample, a status message from coffee machine 114 may includeinformation of low coffee pod/capsules storage, indicating a demand fornew coffee pods/capsules. For another example, a status message from thethermostat 113 may indicate undesirable air quality, which may relate toa demand for an air purifier. For example, a pseudo-segment of a statusmessage to poll the communication stack may take a form similar to thefollowing:

  Host: 172.16.244.5 Destination: 172.16.244.1 <status> <host_id>printer_HP_color </host_id> <destination_id> MGA </destination_id> <power> normal </normal>  <paper> 80% </paper>  <color_ink>   <red> 20%</red>  </color_ink> </status>

In some embodiments, in response to receiving a status message, themedia guidance application may obtain information relating to thedemanded object from the status message. For example, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve previously stored rules (e.g., stored atstorage 408 described in relation to FIG. 4, or data source 518accessible via communications network 514 described in relation to FIG.5) defining logics to identify the demanded object from a statusmessage. For instance, the rule for printer 112 may indicate that an inklevel lower than 30% indicates a demand for cartridge replacement. Thusin the above example status message, the media guidance application mayread the status message and determine that the “red ink” level of 20%indicates a demand for cartridge replacement. For another, the rule forthe thermostat 113 may specify that an air quality index lower than athreshold indicates a demand for objects relating to an air filter.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thedemanded object with the advertised object to determine whether theadvertised object is related to the demanded object. For example, theadvertised object may be matched with the demanded object if they sharethe same product type, are both usable by the same computing device,and/or the like. The media guidance application may determine a firstset of attributes relating to the advertised object, such as a producttype, a brand name, a keyword, and a corresponding computing devicerelating to the advertised object, and/or the like. For example, for theadvertised object 107, the media guidance application may identifyattributes from the metadata such as, but not limited to, “coffee”(product type), “capsule” (product type), “pod” (product type),Nespresso® (brand name), Vertuoline®” (brand name), “French vanilla”(keyword), etc. Similarly, the media guidance application may determinea second set of attributes relating to the demanded object, such as aproduct type, a brand name, a keyword, and a corresponding computingdevice relating to the demanded object, and/or the like, e.g., thedemanded object for the coffee machine 114 including attribute such as,but not limited to, “coffee” (product type), “pack” (product type),Nespresso® (brand name), etc. The media guidance application may thencompare the first set of attributes with the second set of attributes todetermine an overlap percentage between the two sets of attributes, anddetermine whether the overlap percentage exceeds a matching threshold(e.g., 70%, 80%, etc.) for the demanded object. In response todetermining that the overlap percentage exceeds the matching thresholdfor the demanded object, the media guidance application may determinethat the advertised object is related to the demanded object based onthe comparing. In the above example, if the advertised object 107, e.g.,“Nespresso” coffee, overlaps with the demanded object, e.g., “NespressoFrench vanilla pods,” for 80% of the attributes, the advertised object107 may be identified as related to the demanded object.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the advertised object is related to the demanded object based onpre-defined rules that are specific to the type of the demanded objector the computing device. For example, when the demanded object relatesto the coffee machine 114, a set of pre-defined rules may request thatthe advertised object 107 match with the brand name of the demandedobject. For another example, when the demanded object relates to theprinter 112, a set of pre-defined rules may request that the advertisedobject match a specific type of product, e.g., home office products,etc.

In response to determining that the advertised object is related to thedemanded object based on the comparing, the media guidance applicationmay send, to a user device (e.g., a mobile phone, a personal computer, awearable device, etc.), an electronic communication includinginformation relating to the advertised object. For example, when themedia guidance application identifies that an advertisement relating toNespresso® coffee” 107 with “French vanilla” flavor is being played atuser equipment 106, and the Nespresso® coffee machine 114 demands morecoffee capsules, the media guidance application may send a message“purchase more French Vanilla pods?” to the user device 115. In someimplementations, the media guidance application may send the electroniccommunication under a different wireless network than Bluetooth orWi-Fi, e.g., the electronic communication is routed to a remotecommunication server (e.g., a cellular base station, etc.), such thatthe electronic communication is sent to the user device as a text ormultimedia message via a cellular network (e.g., 3G, 4G, etc.). In someimplementations, the media guidance application may send the electroniccommunication through electronic mail, instant message, a voice message,and/or the like.

In response to sending the electronic communication to the user device,the media guidance application may obtain, via the user input interface410 as further described in relation to FIG. 4, a user indication thataffirms a user demand for the advertised object. For example, the usermay confirm an interest in the advertised object by tapping or swipingon the user interface in response to the text message, or bycommunicating a voice command “yes,” or by a gesture (e.g., shaking theuser mobile device to indicate approval, etc.), and/or the like. Inresponse to obtaining the user indication that affirms a user demand ofthe advertised object, the media guidance application may send atransaction request to an electronic commerce website to complete apurchase of the advertised object. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether the metadata corresponding to themedia asset includes information relating to the electronic commercewebsite corresponding to the advertised object, e.g., whether themetadata corresponding to the media asset 105 includes a field for auniversal resource location (URL) link relating to the advertised object107. In response to determining that the metadata corresponding to themedia asset includes information relating to the electronic commercewebsite corresponding to the advertised object, the media guidanceapplication may extract the information relating to the electroniccommerce website and sending the transaction request to the electroniccommerce website. In response to determining that the metadatacorresponding to the media asset does not include information relatingto the electronic commerce website corresponding to the advertisedobject, the media guidance application may initiate a query on apreviously stored electronic commerce website for the advertised object107. For example, the media guidance application may retrieveinformation relating to a previously stored electronic commerce website,e.g., Amazon.com®, BestBuy.com®, etc., and send a query including asearch term relating to the advertised object to the previously storedelectronic commerce website. In response to sending the previouslystored electronic commerce website, the media guidance application mayobtain a link to a product page relating to the advertised object, andsend the transaction request to the product page relating to theadvertised object.

For example, the media guidance application may send a HypertextTransfer Protocol (HTTP) PUT message to a server hosting the commercewebsite to initiate a transaction. The HTTP PUT message including thetransaction request may take a form similar to the following:

PUT: transaction request.php HTTP/1.1 Host: 172.16.244.1 Destination:www.nespresso.com/pods/french_vanilla/purchase <transaction_request><host_id> MGA </host_id> <user_id> john_smith </user_id> <user_password>XXXXXX </user_password> <URL>www.nespresso.com/pods/french_vanilla/purchase </URL> <request_detail> <product_id> French_vanilla_008 </product_id>  <quantity> 20</quantity>  <price> </price> </request_detail> </transaction_request>

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may only initiatethe polling and send notifications to the user during commercial breaks,so as to reduce the amount of any interruptive notification to the userwhen the user is engaging in watching a television program. For example,in response to polling the communication stack at the time for thestatus information of a plurality of computing devices, the mediaguidance application may determine whether the media asset is at acommercial break at the time based on the metadata corresponding to themedia asset. In response to determining that the media asset is at thecommercial break at the time, the media guidance application may send,to a user device (e.g., a user mobile device, etc.), an electroniccommunication including information relating to the advertised objectwhen the advertised object is related to the demanded object. Inresponse to determining that the media asset is not at the commercialbreak at the time, the media guidance application may refrain fromsending, to the user device, the electronic communication and adding theadvertised object to a wish list associated with a user profile for userreview at a later time.

In some embodiments, before sending a notification to the user device,the media guidance application may evaluate how relevant or crucial theadvertised product is to the user. The media guidance application maystore every demanded object and one or more attributes corresponding tothe demanded object into a user interest table (e.g., stored at storage408 described in relation to FIG. 4, or data source 518 accessible viacommunications network 514 as described in relation to FIG. 5), andassign to the demanded object a priority score based on the one or moreattributes. For example, an object that the user has a periodicsubscription to, such as cartridge ink for a printer, coffee capsulesfor a coffee machine, etc., may be assigned to a high priority score.For another example, an object that is related to system maintenance ofa device, e.g., upgrade cache memory for a control unit, may also beassigned to a moderate priority score. For another example, objects thatare less urgent, that exceed a purchase amount, or the user has notpurchased before, etc., such as an expensive air purifier, may beassigned to a relatively lower priority score.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may further storeobjects that the user may be interested in the use interest table, byidentifying user interests in an object from user activities (e.g.,Internet activities such as browsing history, social media ‘likes,’etc.). For an object that is not identified as demanded by a computingdevice 111-114, e.g., the object may be identified from the user'sbrowsing history, etc., the priority score for the object may berelatively lower. The media guidance application may store the objectand one or more attributes corresponding to the object into the userinterest table, and assign a priority score to the object based on theobtained information relating to user activities indicating the userinterest in the object and the type of the object. For example, if theuser has previously purchased a product of the same type of the object,the media guidance application may assign a higher priority score. Ifthe user has merely ‘liked’ a photo relating to the object on socialmedia, the media guidance application may assign a lower priority score.The media guidance application may generally assign a lower priorityscore to an object identified from user Internet activities to thedemanded object identified directly through status information from acomputing device. An example priority table for different objects maytake a form similar to the following:

TABLE 1 Example Priority Score Table Object Computing Device Identifiedby Priority Score Coffee pod 1. Coffee 2. Status polling 3. 0.8 Machine4. Printer 5. Printer 6. Status polling 7. 0.8 Cartridge 8. Water Filter9. Refrigerator 10. Status polling 11. 0.7 12. Air Filter 13. Thermostat14. Status polling 15. 0.6 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Volcano 21. N/A 22.Facebook ‘like’ 23. 0.3 Mud Facial 24. Water Facial 25. N/A 26. Yelpcomment 27. 0.2 Therapy 28. 29. 30. 31.Thus, the media guidance application may retrieve the priority scoreassigned to the demanded object from the priority score table, anddetermine whether the priority score is greater than a firstpre-determined priority threshold. For example, the priority scorecorresponding to “coffee pods,” e.g., 0.8, may be greater than the firstpre-determined priority threshold of 0.75, indicating a high priority of“coffee pods” as the user usually has periodic repurchases. In thiscase, the media guidance application may automatically send thetransaction request to the electronic commerce website to complete thepurchase of “coffee pods,” without the user manually initiating apurchase request. For example, the user may respond to the advertisementbeing displayed on user equipment 106 by a voice command “ok,” and themedia guidance application may capture the voice command and facilitatethe transaction. In this way, the media guidance application maystreamline the purchase of a demanded object of high priority withimproved efficiency. For another example, the priority score may belower than the first pre-determined priority threshold but higher than asecond pre-determined priority threshold, e.g., the priority score foran “air filter” is 0.7 which is lower than the first threshold of 0.75but higher than a second threshold of 0.6. The priority score of the“air filter” may indicate a moderate priority for “air filter,” e.g.,the user may not have a periodic repurchase history of the object andany transaction request needs user authorization. Thus, the mediaguidance application may send an electronic communication 122 to theuser device 115 for user confirmation and authorization to initiate apurchase. In some implementations, when the user does not authorize anytransaction request to purchase the advertised object in response to theelectronic communication 122, the media guidance application may add theadvertised object to a wish list associated with the user profile forthe user to review later. For another example, if the advertised objectcorresponds to a priority score lower than the second prioritythreshold, e.g., “water facial therapy” of a priority score of 0.3 whichis lower than the second threshold of 0.6, the media guidanceapplication may refrain from sending a notification to the user device,but only add the advertised product to the wish list corresponding tothe user profile for the user to review later.

FIGS. 2-3 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 2-3 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform, e.g.,user equipment 106 or 114 in FIG. 1. While the displays of FIGS. 2-3 areillustrated as full screen displays, they may also be fully or partiallyoverlaid over content being displayed. A user may indicate a desire toaccess content information by selecting a selectable option provided ina display screen (e.g., a menu option, a listings option, an icon, ahyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button)on a remote control or other user input interface or device. In responseto the user's indication, the media guidance application may provide adisplay screen with media guidance data organized in one of severalways, such as by time and channel in a grid, by time, by channel, bysource, by content type, by category (e.g., movies, sports, news,children, or other categories of programming), or other predefined,user-defined, or other organization criteria.

FIG. 2 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 200arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 200 may include grid 202 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 204, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 206, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 202 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 208, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 210. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 210 may be provided inprogram information region 212. Region 212 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 202 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 214, recorded content listing 216, andInternet content listing 218. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 200 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings214, 216, and 218 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 202 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 202. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 220. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 220.)

Display 200 may also include video region 222, and options region 226.Video region 222 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 222 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 202. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 226 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 226 may be part of display 200 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 226 may concern features related to program listings in grid 202or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.Tivo.com, from other media guidance applicationsthe user accesses, from other interactive applications the useraccesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.), and/orobtain information about the user from other sources that the mediaguidance application may access. As a result, a user can be providedwith a unified guidance application experience across the user'sdifferent user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 5. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 3. Video mosaic display 300 includes selectable options 302 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 300, television listings option 304 isselected, thus providing listings 306, 308, 310, and 312 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 300 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 308 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 314 and text portion 316.Media portion 314 and/or text portion 316 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 314 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 300 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 306 islarger than listings 308, 310, and 312), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 4 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 400. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 5.User equipment device 400 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 402. I/O path 402 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 404, which includesprocessing circuitry 406 and storage 408. Control circuitry 404 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 402. I/O path 402 may connect control circuitry 404 (andspecifically processing circuitry 406) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 404 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 406. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 408). Specifically, control circuitry 404 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 404 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 404 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 404 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 5). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 408 thatis part of control circuitry 404. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 408 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 5, may be used to supplementstorage 408 or instead of storage 408.

Control circuitry 404 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 404 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 400. Circuitry 404 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 408 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 400, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 408.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 404 using user inputinterface 410. User input interface 410 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 412 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400. For example, display 412 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 410may be integrated with or combined with display 412. Display 412 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 412 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 412 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 412.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry404. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 404.Speakers 414 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 412 may be played throughspeakers 414. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers414.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 400. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage408), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 404 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 408 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 404 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 410. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 410 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 400 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 400. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 404 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 404) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 400. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 400.Equipment device 400 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 410 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 400 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 410.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 400 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 404). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 404 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 404. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 404. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 400 of FIG. 4 can be implemented in system 500 ofFIG. 5 as user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, or awireless user communications device 506. For example, user televisionequipment 502 may, like some user computer equipment 504, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 504 may, like some television equipment 502, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 504, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 506.

In system 500, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 5 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, wireless user communicationsdevice 506) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.Tivo.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 514.Namely, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, andwireless user communications device 506 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 514 via communications paths 508, 510, and 512, respectively.Communications network 514 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 508, 510, and 512 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 512 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 5 it is awireless path and paths 508 and 510 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 508, 510, and 512, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 514.

System 500 includes content source 516 and media guidance data source518 coupled to communications network 514 via communication paths 520and 522, respectively. Paths 520 and 522 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 508, 510,and 512. Communications with the content source 516 and media guidancedata source 518 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 516 and 518 withuser equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 are shown as throughcommunications network 514, in some embodiments, sources 516 and 518 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 508, 510, and 512.

Content source 516 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 516 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 516 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 516 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 518 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 518may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 518 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 518 mayprovide user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 408, and executedby control circuitry 404 of a user equipment device 400. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 404 of user equipment device 400and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 518) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 518), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 518 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices502, 504, and 506 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 500 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 5.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 514.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 516 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 502 and user computer equipment 504may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 506 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 514. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 516 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 518. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and wirelessuser communications device 506. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 504 or wireless usercommunications device 506 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 504. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 514. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for identifyingand correlating an advertised object from a media asset with demandsfrom a plurality of computing devices embedded in a living environmentof the user, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Process 600 may be executed by control circuitry 404 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 404 by the media guidance application).Control circuitry 404 may be part of user equipment (e.g., userequipment 106, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment504, and/or wireless communications device 506), or of a remote serverseparated from the user equipment by way of communications network 514.

Process 600 begins at 601, where control circuitry 404 receives, from aremote source, a media asset (e.g., from content source 516 in FIG. 5)and metadata (e.g., from media guidance data source 518 in FIG. 5)corresponding to the media asset. At 602, control circuitry 404 plays,at user equipment (e.g., user equipment 106 in FIG. 1, user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and/or wirelesscommunications device 506 in FIG. 5), the media asset to the user. At603, control circuitry 404 identifies an advertised object (e.g., thecoffee product 107 in FIG. 1) from the metadata corresponding to themedia asset at a time when the media asset is being played, e.g., seethe media asset 105 being played at user equipment 106 in FIG. 1. At604, control circuitry 404 polls, e.g., via I/O path 402 in FIG. 4, acommunication stack within a wireless communications network operatedunder a wireless network protocol (e.g., see wireless connection 119 inFIG. 1), for status information of a plurality of computing devices(e.g., see devices 111-114 in FIG. 1) interconnected via the wirelesscommunication network. For example, the plurality of computing devicesare interconnected via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, as discussed in relation toFIG. 1. The polling at 604 is described in further detail in relation toFIG. 7.

At 605, control circuitry 404 receives, via the wireless communicationsnetwork, an electronic status message from a computing device of theplurality of computing devices. The electronic message is indicative ofa demanded object relating to the computing device. For example, controlcircuitry 404 may receives a message from the coffee machine 114 thatnew coffee capsules are demanded, as discussed in relation to FIG. 1. At606, control circuitry 404 compares the demanded object (e.g., coffeecapsules for the coffee machine 114 in FIG. 1) with the advertisedobject (e.g., coffee product 107 in FIG. 1) to determine whether theadvertised object is related to the demanded object. At 607, if theadvertised object is related to the demanded object based on thecomparing, process 600 proceeds to 608, where control circuitry 404sends, to a user device (e.g., user device 115 in FIG. 1), an electroniccommunication (e.g., message 122 in FIG. 1) including informationrelating to the advertised object. Further detail with respect towhether and when to send the electronic communication is described inrelation to FIG. 8. At 609, control circuitry 404 obtains a userindication that affirms a user demand for the advertised object. Forexample, the user may swipe, tap on the user device (e.g., via userinput interface 410 in FIG. 4), use a voice command (e.g., via speakers414 in FIG. 4), and/or the like, to affirm that the user is interestedin the advertised object. At 610, control circuitry 404 sends atransaction request to an electronic commerce website to complete apurchase of the advertised object, as discussed in further detail inrelation to FIG. 9.

At 607, if the advertised object is unrelated to the demand object,process 600 continues to 711 in FIG. 7.

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for polling awireless communication stack for status information of a plurality ofcomputing devices (e.g., see 604 in FIG. 6), in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. Process 700 may be executed by controlcircuitry 404 (e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry 404 bythe media guidance application). Control circuitry 404 may be part ofuser equipment (e.g., user equipment 106, user television equipment 502,user computer equipment 504, and/or wireless communications device 506),or of a remote server separated from the user equipment by way ofcommunications network 514.

Process 700 begins at 701, where control circuitry 404 determines asegment of the media asset that contains no advertised object based onthe metadata corresponding to the media asset. At 702, if the segment ofthe media asset contains no advertisement, process 700 continues to 703,where control circuitry 404 refrains from polling the communicationstack when the segment of the media asset is being played. At 702, ifthe segment of the media asset contains an advertisement, process 700continues to 704, where control circuitry 404 monitors an engagementlevel of the user towards the media asset. For example, controlcircuitry 404 may collect user activities via user input interface 410in FIG. 4. At 705, control circuitry 404 determines whether theengagement level at the time is greater than an engagement threshold. At706, if the engagement level at the time is no greater than theengagement threshold, process 700 continues to 707, where controlcircuitry 404 refrains from polling the communication stack for thestatus information of a plurality of interconnected computing devices atthe time. At 706, if the engagement level at the time is greater thanthe engagement threshold, process 700 continues to 708, where controlcircuitry 404 polls the communication stack at the time for the statusinformation of a plurality of interconnected computing devices. At 709,if control circuitry 404 determines that the media asset is at acommercial break, process 700 continues to 710, where control circuitry404 sends, to the user device, the electronic communication includinginformation relating to the advertised object. At 709, if controlcircuitry 404 determines that the media asset is not at a commercialbreak, process 700 continues to 711, where control circuitry 404 addsthe advertised object to a wish list associated with a user profile foruser review at a later time. For example, control circuitry 404 onlysends a notification to the user device at commercial breaks to reduceinterruption of the viewing experience.

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether to send an electronic communication to a user device (e.g., see608 in FIG. 6), in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Process 700 may be executed by control circuitry 404 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 404 by the media guidance application).Control circuitry 404 may be part of user equipment (e.g., userequipment 106, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment504, and/or wireless communications device 506), or of a remote serverseparated from the user equipment by way of communications network 514.

Process 800 begins at 801, where control circuitry 404 stores thedemanded object and one or more attributes corresponding to the demandedobject into a user interest table, e.g., at storage 408 in FIG. 4, or ata remote data source 518 in FIG. 5. At 802, control circuitry 404assigns to the demanded object a priority score based on the one or moreattributes. For example, the one or more attributes include any of theproduct type, keyword, brand name, corresponding computing device,and/or the like. At 803, control circuitry 404 retrieves the priorityscore assigned to the one or more product attributes, e.g., from storage408 in FIG. 4, or from the remote data source 518 via communicationsnetwork 514 in FIG. 5. At 804, if the priority score is greater than afirst pre-defined priority threshold, process 800 continues to 805,where control circuitry 404 automatically sends the transaction requestto the electronic commerce website to complete the purchase of theadvertised object without user intervention. For example, the user mayonly need to provide minimum confirmation such as a voice command viaspeakers 414 in FIG. 4. At 804, if the priority score is not greaterthen the first pre-defined priority threshold, but greater than a secondpre-defined priority threshold at 806, process 800 continues to 807,where control circuitry 404 sends the electronic communication to theuser device and subsequently sends the transaction request to theelectronic commerce website to complete the purchase of the advertisedobject. At 806, if the priority score is not greater then the secondpre-defined priority threshold, control circuitry 404 refrains fromsending the electronic communication to the user device and adding theadvertised object to a wish list corresponding to a user profile.

FIG. 9 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for sending atransaction request to initiate a purchase of the advertised product(e.g., see 610 in FIG. 6), in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Process 900 may be executed by control circuitry 404 (e.g.,in a manner instructed to control circuitry 404 by the media guidanceapplication). Control circuitry 404 may be part of user equipment (e.g.,user equipment 106, user television equipment 502, user computerequipment 504, and/or wireless communications device 506), or of aremote server separated from the user equipment by way of communicationsnetwork 514.

Process 900 begins at 901, where control circuitry 404 determineswhether the metadata corresponding to the media asset includesinformation relating to the electronic commerce website corresponding tothe advertised object. At 902, if the metadata relating to anadvertisement contains a website link, process 900 continues to 903,where control circuitry 404 extracts the information relating to theelectronic commerce website (e.g., a URL link), and then sends thetransaction request to the electronic commerce website at 904. At 902,if the metadata relating to an advertisement does not contain a websitelink, process 900 continues to 905, where control circuitry 404retrieves information relating to a previously stored electroniccommerce website (e.g., Amazon.com®, Bestbuy.com®, etc.). At 906,control circuitry 404 sends a query including a search term relating tothe advertised object to the previously stored electronic commercewebsite. At 907, control circuitry 404 obtains a link to a product pagerelating to the advertised object. At 908, control circuitry 404 sendsthe transaction request to the product page relating to the advertisedobject.

FIG. 10 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for identifyingand correlating an advertised object from a media asset with a demandedobject of a computing device, in accordance with alternative embodimentsof the disclosure. Process 1000 may be executed by control circuitry 404(e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry 404 by the mediaguidance application). Control circuitry 404 may be part of userequipment (e.g., user equipment 106, user television equipment 502, usercomputer equipment 504, and/or wireless communications device 506), orof a remote server separated from the user equipment by way ofcommunications network 514.

Process 1000 begins at 1001, where control circuitry 404 receives amedia asset (e.g., from content source 516 in FIG. 5) and metadata(e.g., from media guidance data source 518 in FIG. 5) corresponding tothe media asset. At 1002, control circuitry 404 plays, at userequipment, the media asset to the user. At 1003, control circuitry 404identifies an advertised object from the metadata corresponding to themedia asset at a time when the media asset is being played. At 1004,control circuitry 404 receives information relating to a demanded objectrelating to a computing device. At 1005, in response to determining thatthe advertised object is related to the demanded object, controlcircuitry 404 sends, to a user device, an electronic communicationincluding information relating to the advertised object.

It should be noted that processes 600-900 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in, or describedwith respect to, FIGS. 1 and 4-5. For example, any of processes 600-900may be executed by control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed bycontrol circuitry implemented on user equipment 106 (FIG. 1), 502, 504,506 (FIG. 5), and/or the like for generating and displaying a summaryview of a media asset. In addition, one or more steps of processes600-900 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps ofany other process or embodiment.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of each of FIGS. 6-9may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition,the steps and descriptions described in relation to FIGS. 6-9 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, each of these steps may be performed inany order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lagor increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should benoted that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation toFIGS. 1 and 4-5 could be used to perform one or more of the steps inFIGS. 6-9.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present disclosure may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM device, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent disclosure may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, determining whether the advertised object is related to thedemanded object, e.g., by processing circuitry 406 of FIG. 4. Theprocessing circuitry, for instance, may be a general purpose processor,a customized integrated circuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmablegate array (FPGA) within user equipment 400, media content source 516,or media guidance data source 518. For example, attributes correspondingto an advertised object, and priority scores corresponding to theobjects, as described herein, may be stored in, and retrieved from,storage 408 of FIG. 4, or media guidance data source 518 of FIG. 5.Furthermore, processing circuitry, or a computer program, may updateconfiguration data of the media guidance application, which may bestored within storage 408 of FIG. 4 or media guidance data source 518 ofFIG. 5.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

While some portions of this disclosure may make reference to“convention,” any such reference is merely for the purpose of providingcontext to the invention(s) of the instant disclosure, and does not formany admission as to what constitutes the state of the art.

1-51. (canceled)
 52. A method comprising: detecting presentation of acontent item; retrieving metadata associated with the content item;identifying, based on the metadata, an advertised object associated withthe content item; and when the advertised object is identified:receiving, at a second device via a communications network, a status ofa consumption level for a consumable object at a first device;determining that the status of the consumption level indicates that theconsumable object is a demanded object at the first device based on theconsumption level at the first device; determining that the advertisedobject is related to the demanded object; and in response to determiningthat (i) the status of the consumption level indicates the consumableobject is the demanded object and (ii) the advertised object is relatedto the demanded object, sending a communication comprising informationrelating to the advertised object.
 53. The method of claim 52, furthercomprising: in response to determining that the advertised object isrelated to the demanded object, receiving a priority score correspondingto the demanded object.
 54. The method of claim 52, wherein thereceiving the status of the consumption level for the consumable objectat the first device comprises: polling for status information of aplurality of devices interconnected via a network; and receiving, fromthe status information via the network, a status indicator of the firstdevice of the plurality of devices.
 55. The method of claim 54, whereinthe polling for the status information comprises polling a communicationstack within a wireless communications network operated under a wirelessnetwork protocol for the status information.
 56. The method of claim 54,wherein the polling for the status information comprises: determining aportion of the content item that contains no advertised object based onthe metadata; and refraining from polling for the status informationduring playback of the portion.
 57. The method of claim 52, furthercomprising: detecting an engagement level towards the content itemgreater than an engagement threshold; and in response to the detecting,receiving the status of the consumption level for the consumable objectat the first device.
 58. The method of claim 52, wherein the metadata isassociated with a currently presented portion of the content item. 59.The method of claim 52, wherein sending the communication comprises:routing the communication to a remote communication server, wherein theremote communication server transmits the communication to the seconddevice.
 60. The method of claim 52, wherein the communication comprisesa transaction request related to purchasing the advertised object. 61.The method of claim 60, wherein the metadata comprises information foraccessing an electronic commerce website, the method further comprising:based on the information for accessing the electronic commerce website,obtaining a link to a product page relating to the advertised object;and including the link to the product page in the communication prior tothe sending.
 62. A system comprising: communication circuitry configuredto receive and transmit data; and control circuitry configured to:detect presentation of a content item; retrieve metadata associated withthe content item; identify, based on the metadata, an advertised objectassociated with the content item; and when the advertised object isidentified: receive, at a second device via a communications network, astatus of a consumption level for a consumable object at a first device;determine that the status of the consumption level indicates that theconsumable object is a demanded object at the first device based on theconsumption level at the first device; determine that the advertisedobject is related to the demanded object; and in response to determiningthat (i) the status of the consumption level indicates the consumableobject is the demanded object and (ii) the advertised object is relatedto the demanded object, send, via the communication circuitry, acommunication comprising information relating to the advertised object.63. The system of claim 62, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to: in response to determining that the advertised object isrelated to the demanded object, receive a priority score correspondingto the demanded object.
 64. The system of claim 62, wherein the controlcircuitry, when receiving the status of the consumption level for theconsumable object at the first device, is configured to: poll for statusinformation of a plurality of devices interconnected via a network; andreceive, from the status information via the network, a status indicatorof the first device of the plurality of devices.
 65. The system of claim64, wherein the control circuitry, when polling for the statusinformation, is configured to poll a communication stack within awireless communications network operated under a wireless networkprotocol for the status information.
 66. The system of claim 64, whereinthe control circuitry, when polling for the status information, isconfigured to: determine a portion of the content item that contains noadvertised object based on the metadata; and refrain from polling forthe status information during playback of the portion.
 67. The system ofclaim 62, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: detectan engagement level towards the content item greater than an engagementthreshold; and in response to detecting the engagement level towards thecontent item greater than an engagement threshold, receive the status ofthe consumption level for the consumable object at the first device. 68.The system of claim 62, wherein the metadata is associated with acurrently presented portion of the content item.
 69. The system of claim62, wherein the control circuitry, when sending the communication, isconfigured to: route the communication to a remote communication server,wherein the remote communication server transmits the communication tothe second device.
 70. The system of claim 62, wherein the communicationcomprises a transaction request related to purchasing the advertisedobject.
 71. The system of claim 70, wherein the metadata comprisesinformation for accessing an electronic commerce website, and whereinthe control circuitry is further configured to: based on the informationfor accessing the electronic commerce website, obtain a link to aproduct page relating to the advertised object; and include the link tothe product page in the communication prior to the sending.